I'd given myself 2 weeks to try and make some satisfactory drum parts (for my own standards) while i had access to my drum set over Christmas. I stuffed everything with a cable or some kind of cardioid, condensing, vibration recording capabilities into a hiking backpack and headed for the bus-bus-train-bus-ferry. That was in 2014….4 years ago. I hadn’t played my old rogers drum set in a year, and had it in my mind that I’d envision, write, and record all the drum parts for the acoustic guitar scratch-tracks I’d recorded.

If I knew this album would have taken 4 years, or that there was to be a hard-drive crash resulting in tons of lost work, I might have considered another less-critical, more haphazard, vst-instrument-heavy produced album like my previous albums. After the recent few weeks of pretending like the thousands of minor mixing alterations I’ve made produced any real difference to the overall sound of the songs, I’ve decided.. it’s time. I have over 8 songs already written, a few album concepts, and a lot of creative energy that could be spent on new projects. The recording on this album isn’t perfect. I've learned A LOT about mixing live instruments, the dangers of layering - some might say - too much (I hear too much potential and familiarity with existing elements in songs trick me into justifying even more complexity), and learned a lot about long-term projects. Mostly…the longer you make a project last, the more resistance and increased pressure to live up to your own expectations occurs. This project has taken too long. I’ve had to much time with it recently, but over 4 years I’ve seen every song reach a new stage of evolution as I added drums, then bass, then re-did guitar, then electric guitar (the tremolo parts brought needed life and texture to the songs), then vst-instruments, then vocals. I still really like these songs. I suppose you could say that something is the most honest or true to ones-self when a relationship between that person and their creative material is maintained in (for the most part) a positive and honest manner over a long stretch of time. This has happened, so I suppose by that logic they still represent a truth somewhere in me. Also, I truly think they are unique songs, and in an unbelievably saturated landscape of more music than anyone could ever hear, and re-cycled formulas and influences that make authenticity in music more and more rare, the fact that elements of these songs are unique makes me feel a sense of accomplishment. Whether or not you like them, well, is entirely out of my hands.

The Vision

What I wanted to do: I love many genres and influences consciously and unconsciously show up in my music (it would be impossible for them to not, I suppose). I wanted the songs to be similar in length and never too-long. Even-though the average length of songs I listen to exceed 5 minutes, I wanted to keep songs under 5 - 4 or 3 would be ideal. I wanted to bring Post-Rock (Check-out Jakob, Long Distance Calling, Red Sparrowes, Signal Hill, Caspian, Explosions In The Sky, Russian Circles) elements into the songs. Specifically, I wanted interesting drum parts and guitar textures (the tremolo stuff) to bring the reverberated spaciousness that so-often inspires me within that genre. Further, I wanted to incorporate a post-rock build in at-least one song but didn’t want to compromise the song-length. “Here” is the result of that effort. I wanted to incorporate my Math-Rock influences (Check-out Giraffes? Giraffes!, Don Caballero, Piglet, Tera Melos, Chon, The Littlest Viking) , so behind the spacious guitar, I wanted technical acoustic guitar-riffs accompanied by rhythmic bass-patterns. “Here” starts more technical and mathy, switches gears about half way (in my mind to avoid offending the non-math-listeners-ears) and the post-rock build starts. On vocals, I wanted melody and floating nature to be a focus, and clarity to be somewhere in the middle. I wanted you to hear what I was saying (except in parts of Leap -that was improvised), but I wanted the vibe to be like a steady instrument that could float above the more sporratic and technical elements. That aim is influenced by shoegaze music (see My Bloody Valentine, Anne, Whirr -or the now becoming very popular shoe gaze influenced pop like Beach Fossils, Real Estate, and Alvvays). I wanted it to be a nice listen , but for every repeat listen there is more and more to hear, discover, and focus on. Influence on We Disappear - Little Wings. Some bands very close to my heart with a lot of these elements inspired me greatly, including but not limited to: The Appleseed Cast, Rooftops, Sholi, and American Football.

Concepts

Colours are different for us. We perceive differently , and experience differently . The interplay of that relationship has been one of the major players rattling around in my head during the conceptualizing of this album. I often think about that idea kurzweil is always talking about how the doubling of brain scanning resolution size seems to lead us (in the future) to a live replication and simulation of all of an individuals neural pathways using a computer that will have, by then, advanced exponentially . I imagine being able to run simulations of other peoples total neural activity on the then-integrated technologies in my brain and be able to genuinely experience the presence of some one else's waking sensory interpreting engines. The whole future-scene seems so intriguing, yet, tends to also repel me further towards earth, roots, chloroplast and river. The mind is a survival and behaviour repeating engine that clouds the expression of true-self, or, a shared state of awareness that is common to all of us . The true self that can watch it all. I could riff-on about all the different conceptual influences for the lyrics and overall tone of the album, but for the most part what I can say is that it’s all genuine expression. That is to say - an attempt to reach into my own subconscious, pull out vibes and concepts I haven’t articulated yet, and lay them out in front of me using sound…I suppose to try and understand truth and reality in ways I hadn’t before.

Thanks

Thanks to everyone in my life that responds to my rare re-connect message with warm regards and genuine interest - all of you keep me within the necessary framework of time and space. Thanks to my family for encouraging the producing of all the weird experimental albums over the years, and supporting me to follow creative pursuits. Thank you Amelia for showing interest in these songs and keeping me on-track to finishing them. Brennan for keeping me exploring and for inspiring me with your own tunes & Cory for the countless hours of Valleys & Easy There Tiger jams that shaped new boundaries of musical landscape for me to play around in. Peter Robinson, thank you for helping lay down vocal tracks, and helping me with the mastering chains - I feel like I used them 39% right. Big thanks to all the bands mentioned above - and too many others to name - for inspiring me endlessly.